Greater Manchester'sActive Travel Mission
Refreshing Greater Manchester's Active Travel Mission
In recent years, Greater Manchester has committed itself to building a world-class walking, wheeling and cycling network, a commitment that was restated at the launch of the new Greater Manchester Strategy in March 2022. The city-region’s vision and plan for Active Travel is impressive and the next phase is to ensure active travel is now completely embedded into a region-wide, London-style transport system.
Active Travel Commissioner, Dame Sarah Storey, has unveiled a refreshed active travel mission for Greater Manchester focusing on accessibility, behaviour change and clear communications.
Foundations
Fundamental to our programme will be three foundations, the ABC at the heart of our programme:
Accessibility
Active travel in Greater Manchester must be inclusive, universally accessible and built to consistent standards that meet and exceed local and national standards. That means providing appropriate infrastructure, adaptations and indeed space on our streets.
Behaviour change
We’re building on Greater Manchester’s Right Mix target to help people walk, wheel and cycle more, and crucially, reduce the number of trips made by car and other non-sustainable modes.
Communications & engagement
To deliver on A and B, we will promote transparent and simplified communication lines for schemes at all stages of development and delivery.
Priorities
Building upon these foundations, there are five key priorities that will drive the work and focus of active travel over the coming years.
Home to School Travel
Ensure education establishments across the region are provided with the tools to engage with every option available to support our youngest members of society.
Infrastructure Delivery
At the heart of the strategy is the building of a universally accessible, coherent and connected network for Greater Manchester.
Integration with Public Transport
Ensure that stops and interchanges are easy and safe to walk, wheel and cycle to. Passenger experience is the highest priority so we want to make it easy to Get On Board from start to finish.
Road Danger Reduction
Greater Manchester to adopt Vision Zero where the target is no deaths and severe injuries on Greater Manchester’s roads.
Starling Bank Bikes and Access to Cycles
Support the development of the bike hire and bike libraries schemes that have launched across the city region, to give communities and individuals access to cycles and adapted bikes.
Providing access for everyone
Whether disabled, getting older or living with a health condition, everyone should have the choice to travel actively.
Next steps
To deliver on this mission, ten recommendations have been developed for Greater Manchester:
Renew the commitment for every part of the Bee Active Network to be universally accessible.
Deliver a pilot for trialling the carriage of bikes and non-standard cycles on trams.
Adopt Vision Zero, clearly stating a timeframe and plan for all people in GM to commit to.
Publish a plan for the expansion of GM’s bike hire scheme to additional areas of Greater Manchester.
Establish an integrated ticketing system for the Bee Network that incorporates Starling Bank Bikes allowing customers to complete end to end, multi-modal journeys with a single fare.
Explore new offers - including for Our Pass holders - on Starling Bank Bikes and TfGM’s Cycle Hubs to improve access and encourage use.
Publish the comprehensive network review by the end of April 2023.
Publish a comprehensive update to the future pipeline of active travel infrastructure, acknowledging the previous ten year target and including annual goals to enable progress to be transparently tracked and reported on year by year. Target date of April 2023 for the initial update.
Deliver a new plan for travel between home and school that reduces the number of children being driven less than 2km to their school and helps support Greater Manchester’s ambitions for improved air quality.
Work with GM’s local authorities and the Voluntary Community and Social Enterprises (VCSE) sector to create an expanding, accessible and diverse range of training offers to suit local needs that reaches all residents of GM by 2025. Collaborate with Bikeability to assist them in achieving the ambition to ensure that every child is able to achieve level 2 Bikeability by 2025.
Read the full document
Find out more about Greater Manchester's Refreshed Active Travel Mission by reading the plan in full
